One
September 1889
London, England
Apollo César Sinclair Robles, Duke of Annan, had prepared for many eventualities as he assumed his new title. He anticipated, for example, dealing with open hostility toward his person and the means by which he’d regained his title. He even expected to be a social pariah, rarely acknowledged by peers who held him in contempt for his undeniable—and unavoidable—existence. But as it turned out, the most formidable foe he’d encountered in the British Isles was the food.
“Basura.” He gagged as he forced a bite of what he’d been told was very fine mutton by the butler of Travelers, the only gentlemen’s club in London Apollo could stomach. “How do you eat this?” He pushed the plate away with disgust before turning to his brother, Evan, who seemed to delight in watching him suffer through British culinary experiences.
“My palate, like the rest of my countrymen’s, is irreparably dead,” Evan said with gusto, before handing Apollo a glass of amber liquid.
He mistakenly drank too deeply and almost spit that out. “What is this?”
“My competition,” Evan informed him with a very satisfied laugh. “It’s horrid, isn’t it?”
This place, this unseasoned food, this insipid whisky was rubbish, and now, thanks to his damned obsession with revenge, his future was inextricably linked to all of it.
“I should’ve shot you when I had the chance,” Apollo muttered, wincing as he put down the glass. Evan smiled, utterly unaffected by the threat. His brother, aside from being Apollo’s right-hand man in managing the affairs of the duchy, was also a whisky distiller. He loved surprising Apollo with competing spirits. It was almost never a good experience.
“We could be eating well at your residence, if you weren’t hiding from your aunt.” This came from his oldest and supposed dearest friend, Gilberto Dossantos, who had come from Paris solely to aggravate Apollo. The mention of his dear Tia Jimena made Apollo groan. The woman was the only mother he’d ever known, but since she’d arrived in London after hearing of Apollo’s father dying, she had been on a mission to find him a perfect duchess and orchestrating his entry into society.
He was to blame for voicing these desires to his aunt, but she’d taken to the task like Simón Bolívar on his quest to forge La Gran Colombia.
“I’m not hiding,” he muttered, making Evan and Gilberto laugh at his expense.
He considered his brother, who had only learned of his existence a year earlier and yet had been his most loyal ally in a scheme that could’ve cost them both everything. Apollo had grown to care for him and had been surprised by Evan’s desire to continue their friendship. His two sisters, Adalyn and Beatrice, who he’d expected to take their father’s side, had sur prised him too. In fact, they’d forced themselves into Apollo’s life and affairs with the subtlety of a bull run.
He didn’t quite know how to feel about any of it. He liked his siblings, he was glad to have his aunt and his cousin here with him too. But he loathed this world. It was all so damned silly.
These clubs were the prime example of the things he most detested of the aristocracy and the theater that was the life of a peer. The only reason he was here was because it was the only place to get a reprieve from the constant parade of debutantes his aunt seemed to find everywhere she went.
“How much longer do we have to be here?” he asked morosely, putting down the glass of terrible whisky.
“Until you receive all your new admirers,” Evan said acerbically, which only served to incense Apollo that much more. In the last couple of weeks, he’d discovered that the wrath of the aristocracy only went so far when one arrived in the British Isles with coffers full of money. Not that all of them were happy to have a Black duke among their midst, but a surprising number of them were happy to overlook that attribute if it meant they got a chance to sell the new Duke of Annan on one of their demented schemes.
So far tonight, he’d been offered the opportunity to pay off the debts of a marquess in exchange for his daughter’s hand. He’d been informed he could have the honor of attending a hunt hosted by a bankrupt duke for the right price…and covering the costs of the entire affair. But the winner of the evening had been a baronet’s attempt to sell him a mine the scoundrel didn’t own himself and had no clue where it was located. Blatant attempts to fleece him, apparently, were the ton’s way of welcoming Apollo into the fold.
Unfortunately for them, Apollo thought less of the regard of the so-called ton than he did for what passed for food in this godforsaken damp rock they called England.
“Oh, here comes another welcoming party,” Gilberto whispered, and all three men turned to watch the approaching twosome, one short and jowly, the other of an impressive stature and pale complexion.
“That’s Barton, and one of Ackworth’s acolytes,” Evan informed Apollo, who sat up on his chair and sneered.
“Ackworth,” Gilberto mused, shifting his large body. The spindly chair under him squeaked in protestation. “Why does that name sound familiar?” his Carioca friend asked no one in particular.
“Because that’s the miscreant whose family ransacked the coast of Brazil from Recife to S?o Luis until they were forcibly removed.” Then they’d gone down to Cartagena to do the same. But it seemed that was all in the past. “Now the man has dedicated himself to denouncing the arrival of foreigners and usurpers who he claims are destroying the fabric of his fair Britannia,” Apollo relayed with a generous serving of sarcasm.
Ackworth, who’d spent the better part of two decades, when he was the third son of a destitute lord, declaring his love for the Americas and denouncing the prejudiced nature of his countrymen toward the “natives”, had become a staunch nationalist after the death of a distant cousin made him Viscount Ackworth. Ackworth was now an advocate of maintaining the purity of the aristocracy, declaring which the very idea of a duke of mixed race was an abomination that could not be allowed to stand. The journey across the Atlantic seemed to have erased any memories the man had of his many years in Brazil.
Since the scandal of Apollo’s claim on his father’s title, the new viscount had a newfound zeal for the aristocracy as “the anointed, sacrosanct institution of the great and good of the empire” and had tasked himself with spreading all manners of rumors about Apollo’s illegitimacy. How Apollo invented his father’s marriage, that he forged the marriage certificate for his parents, that the photograph of the wedding was a forgery.
“Right.” Gilberto’s own father had been an admiral for the Royal Navy, who’d married a Brazilian heiress and remained in his adopted country for the rest of his life. Gilberto and his father had feelings about men like Ackworth—and the late Duke of Annan—who treated former colonies as their own personal playgrounds to reenact their berserker fantasies.
“I can’t believe anyone’s listening to that imbecile.” Evan’s expression was thunderous. Righteous in his affront that anyone would dare question Apollo’s title. He, on the other hand, expected this to go on for the rest of his life.
“I’m quite amazed that this surprises you, brother,” he said, laughing at Evan’s pugnacious expression. “You really thought the great and good in the House of Lords would just allow a Black man to be made duke without so much as a complaint?”
A pair of the great and good within earshot emitted a few gasps of disbelief at Apollo’s words.
“I expect them to abide by the bloody rules they created!” Evan glowered menacingly at them in return. This was one thing Apollo had not been able to disabuse his younger sibling from, this need to fight battles for him with the bigots they were forced to deal with.
How did Apollo explain to Evan that there was no rational thought, no logical path forward for men like Ackworth? A man whose family squandered everything they’d stolen, and when they did, went and stole some more from the very people they considered their inferiors.
“They can’t refute what’s there. The duke recognized me as his legitimate firstborn.” The duke had not done it happily, but in the end, he’d complied.
Gilberto made a sound of agreement. “They might not like it, and I’m sure they will do so vocally whenever he’s there, but they can’t refute it.” Evan remained visibly displeased. Apollo had no comfort to offer.
“Unless they have me killed.” Evan paled at the jest, turning his intense gaze toward Apollo.
“Don’t say that.” Despite his general annoyance, his brother’s fierce reaction to possible harm coming to him moved Apollo. These past few months had been such a whirlwind of confusing emotions. He’d gained so much and lost just as much. A father he’d never known but whose death had brought life-altering consequences for Apollo. But the one thing that had not faltered was his brother’s affection and loyalty.
When Evan’s expression remained vexed, Apollo threw up his hands in defeat. “I won’t say it again, but I was only joking. I doubt the complaints Ackworth put forward will go any further than that.”
“I still don’t like it,” Evan finally said, grimacing at the whisky he’d ordered, likely regretting not ordering a dram of his own spirits.
“You’ll like it even less in a second,” Apollo murmured, tipping his chin toward a third man walking in their direction. “He’s headed here.”
As Ackworth neared, Gilberto glared openly at the blond, bunching his fists on the armrests in a less than friendly gesture. His friend was a master of the Brazilian capoeiragem, the martial art brought to the North Coast of the country by Angolan slaves. There was nothing Gilberto enjoyed more than intimidating a bigot.
“Annan.” Ackworth’s attempt at civility only managed to infuriate Apollo further. As if he didn’t know what the man had been up to in the House of Lords. If they were back in Colombia, they’d work things out with a few obscenities, per haps a blow or two, and be done with it. But this was not how wars were fought in the aristocracy.
Ackworth was in his finery today, a far cry from the shabby suits he’d worn during his Rio days. Still handsome with that lustrous blond hair, blue eyes and a trim form. But the man had come into money recently, no one knew quite how. His cousin the viscount had died in poverty.
“Ackworth,” he almost spat out, making sure the man knew they were not friends. Men like this were reared with this sense that the world owed them everything they desired. When fortune smiled upon them, they were happy to boast it was all their own doing, and when they lost it—due to their own stupidity—they moved in an affronted rage looking for someone to fix it or to blame for it.
“Say, you seem to be settling into your new role.” The words were welcoming enough, but his expression was communicating “don’t become too comfortable” quite loudly.
But that was probably what Ackworth was after, prodding him into a fit of temper. Give the club an excuse to chuck him out. Remind Apollo again that he might have sneaked into their midst on a technicality, but they would let him know at every opportunity that he was an outsider.
“Ackworth, I doubt you can do much to help me,” Apollo countered with a smile, standing up to his full height, which came to a good five inches taller than his rival. The man stepped back with a sneer. “Dressing smartly these days, I see.” He tugged hard on the man’s lapel, making Ackworth splutter. “Who did you swindle this time?” The viscount balked, then quieted when Gilberto stood up next to Apollo. “The last I heard, you were embroiled in a fraud scandal that involved at least three countries.”
Ackworth choked on his own outrage, a blotchy red flush covering his neck and face. Apollo moved an inch closer, hoping the bastard would give him an excuse to settle this like men.
“You are insolent, sir,” Ackworth finally managed, his face growing redder by the second.
Apollo bared his teeth and considered how bad he might hurt himself politically if he wiped the floor with this cretin.
“I can afford to be, Ackworth,” Apollo told him, and this time the smile on his face was not feigned. He leaned into the shorter, slender man. “Can I share a secret?” A nervous puff of sour breath escaped the viscount, turning Apollo’s stomach. “I don’t give two farthings about respectability or any of your lot’s regard. I couldn’t care less about you and your little band of zealots.” By now, Ackworth’s eyes were bulging out and his two associates were standing a good five feet away from him. “If you know what’s good for you, worry about what I’ll do once I get my hands on whatever you’re hiding under the floorboards.”
He was being loud now, and the heads of half the men in the room were turned in his direction. Good, let them look. He would be damned if he allowed any of these parasites, born and bred to leech off the work of others, to believe even for a second Apollo would be bowing and scraping for their acceptance. “It would be in your best interest to remember—” still fisting one of the man’s lapels, he pressed a finger into Ackworth’s chest, hard enough to bruise “—that unlike your bark, mine comes with a bite.” Apollo let go of the viscount, who wobbled backward with his mouth hanging open.
“I think I’ve had enough of my peers for an evening,” he told Evan and Gilberto in an amiable tone, which was a sharp contrast to the icy glare directed at Ackworth.
As they exited the Travelers Club, Evan let out a long sigh. “That won’t help matters.”
“I’d burn down the House of Lords myself before I gave Ackworth the satisfaction of saying I tried to curry his favor.”
Evan lifted a hand, shaking his head. “I’m not telling you to refrain from directing your derision when and where it is merited, I’m just pointing out facts.”
“That man is hiding something,” he said to his brother, who was looking at the darkened street like it held the answers they needed. Ackworth had been practically indigent when he’d left Cartagena years earlier. “We need to find it, and when we do, I’ll expose him for the hypocrite he is.” Gilberto emitted a sound of approval while Evan stood silently, very likely devising a plan to do that very thing.
“This is not a war we win with public outbursts,” Evan muttered, without looking at him.
Apollo clenched his jaw in frustration. He knew his brother was right. He was already tired of this. These men, this world, and yet he was loathe to let it go. He was determined to prove that he could be a better duke, a better kind of aristocrat than the lot of them ever could. The thought reminded him of a certain short-arsed physician who had fled his apartment like a thief in the night and had never returned.
He’d been a cad, dismissing her words, because she’d laid bare his greatest fear. That he would never be able to honor his mother’s legacy. That perhaps he was not much better than those men he despised.
The theater of position, of good breeding, was a rotten, foul thing, but it was what he’d come here to claim. Any sane man would walk away from this putrefaction, this dying institution and the men who inhabited it. If he had any sense, he’d be on the first ship to Cartagena, but then he’d prove them right.
He’d confirm what they all were whispering behind his back, that because of who he was, because of his mother’s African roots, because of who birthed him, he was not fit for purpose. And he would never give the Ackworths of the world the satisfaction. He would flaunt himself in their faces and remind them every day who the people who actually built this empire looked like.
Which only brought him right back to pondering Doctora Montalban. Despite her continued insistence among their shared acquaintances they were polar opposites, their struggles shared many similarities. Her womanhood kept her on the outside of her profession. Within the rooms she was allowed in, she was regarded as a novelty or as an abomination. Tolerated, never fully accepted. He wondered what havoc she’d been wreaking in Paris in the months since she’d come to him.
That hour she’d spent in his rooms still woke him up some nights, hard and wanting. Craving more of her. She’d surprised him, the prim and proper Doctora Montalban, with her secret desires and hungers. Heat surged in him at the memory of her soft thighs and wonderfully slick sex. He winced internally at his claim that he didn’t crave seconds, when barely a day went by without him thinking of how sweet she’d tasted, how desperately he wanted to sink into her heat.
“Mon amis!” The shout from within an approaching conveyance snapped Apollo from his erotic musings. He was happily surprised to see their friend Sédar’s pomaded head sticking out of the brougham.
“What are you doing here?” Apollo asked, as the proprietor of Le Bureau, the luxurious Paris brothel—and one of Apollo’s favorite haunts—threw the door to the carriage open.
“Rescuing you from the doldrums that is the Travelers!” he offered jovially as they all climbed into the carriage, grateful to be taken away from the club.
“Are you a member?” Evan asked Sédar as he dropped onto the bench seat next to Apollo.
“I am,” he said with one of his there-are-no-doors-closed- to-me expressions. “I assume they have not improved on their hospitality?”
“If you mean are they still offering gray food and allowing all manner of bores,” Apollo said, “you assumed correctly. I’m going back to Paris,” he declared with a flustered exhale. “I can’t take this any longer.”
Gilberto nodded in grim agreement as Sédar instructed the coachman on their destination.
“Isn’t your aunt hosting a dinner for some dollar princess?” Evan demanded, while Apollo groaned. “Don’t shoot the messenger!” His brother threw his hands up at Apollo. “That is the life of a man hunting for a bride.” A little too pleased with himself, he smoothed his lapel and grinned. “I have no such difficulties. My bride is awaiting my arrival to our marriage bed, as we speak.”
“You’re absolutely insufferable since that Dominican hellion tamed you,” Gilberto observed with humor. Evan beamed. The man was a besotted, absolutely hopeless case. Apollo could not begrudge him his marital bliss. Luz Alana, the rum heiress he’d entered into a marriage of convenience with only three months earlier, was formidable. Beautiful and tenacious. He liked her and, despite himself, felt a little envious of what his brother could have now that the duchy was not hanging over his head. That sword of Damocles now solely hovered above Apollo.
Once again, his mind drifted to another tenacious hellion hailing from the Caribbean. Perhaps he could call on her if he ever got back to Paris. Which would be idiotic because he had no time for any of that. He was in the midst of lifting the dukedom’s affairs out of the dark ages. He was vying for more influence in the Lords. He had no time for chasing women who could not abide his presence.
“Paris has been quite lively as of late,” Sédar quipped with an impish glint in his eyes, which he directed pointedly at Apollo.
“Oh? What juicy bits can you share?” Gilberto asked eagerly, the man loved a bit of gossip.
“My sister just employed Evan’s wife’s friend at Le Bureau.” Apollo had only been half listening, but the mention of “Evan’s wife’s friend” was enough to bring his full attention back to the conversation. There were only two options when it came to his sister-in-law’s friends, and one of them was of high interest to him.
Evan scoffed, shaking his head with amusement. “Is Manuela painting one of her orgiastic pieces for Seynabou?”
“Oh, it isn’t the artist.” A simmering heat began at the base of Apollo’s spine at his friend’s words. “We now have an in-house doctor for our staff,” Sédar said amiably, happily ignorant of the fact that he’d just turned the duke sitting in his carriage into an active volcano.
“Aurora is working for you?” The three men swiveled their heads in his direction at the gruff question.
“She is,” Sédar asserted, with a nod. “Seynabou’s been trying to convince her to come to one of those masked parties she hosts for ladies.” The man grinned, as if the idea of Aurora at such a thing was absurd. But Apollo knew the fire Doctora Montalban kept banked inside. Although, it was true that the Aurora he’d met earlier in the summer would’ve never agreed to be seen at a brothel. She also wouldn’t have gone to a man’s apartment to initiate a tryst either. But he now knew she’d done both those things. Something was occurring with the doctora and he was here on this damned island dealing with the likes of Ackworth.
“Are you quite all right, Apollo?” Sédar asked at the same time Gilberto informed him that he was “making growling noises.”
“Tell your driver to take me to Charing Cross Station,” Apollo demanded of the brothel owner, whose mouth dropped open.
“Where the devil are you going?” He only glared at Gil berto as he considered the benefits of simply launching himself from the cab and running to the train.
“To Paris,” he replied, after Sédar spouted some nonsense about luggage and evening plans.
“Brother, might I ask why you’re suddenly in such a rush to return to Paris?” Evan asked, amused.
“Because I damned well want to, and because if I see another bowl of smashed peas, I might do someone violence,” he barked, which his brother apparently took as the height of humor.
“So, you mean to say it has nothing to do with Aurora frequenting a brothel alone?”
“Evan,” Apollo warned, trying mightily to remove that picture from his mind. But his brother seemed much too amused to heed it. From the opposite bench, Gilberto reached out and clapped Apollo’s knee playfully.
“It’s about time a woman made you lose your head.” He didn’t know about that, but he was quite certain Doctora Montalban might try to remove it if he attempted to insinuate himself in her business. Which he planned to do the moment he arrived in Paris.